Dyeing Shoes

I have a bunch of stuff to write up in the near future, but right now I'm dropping by to share something exciting (to me anyway, and probably no one else).

I successfully dyed shoes!

I have a costume party to go to on Sunday, and while I was able to scrounge together an outfit, shoes are always a problem. Thrift stores almost always turn up nothing in the shoe department for me and my weirdly large feet, so I was going to just have to go with some of my normal shoes. On Thursday,  I remembered I have a pair of reproduction 18th century shoes I bought years ago! Though I've had them for a long time, but have never worn them or done anything with them, because frankly, I have nowhere to wear them. That, and they were a shiny white color, which wasn't something I was ever going to wear anyway.

I had stored them up on the shelf where the ant box had been, so I had no idea what condition they were in. Along with the ants, every house I've lived in has had terrible mold, and I was concerned they would have been effected by that, but luckily, they were spared by both.

The end of my week was very busy, an, once I decided to wear and dye them, I had to bust my ass to get them done.. I didn't have time to order the dye recommended by the company that sells the shoes, so I had to go with RIT, which is super hit or miss. I dug around and found  a tutorial that really saved my ass, and they ended up coming out better than I expected! I used navy blue dye, and it didn't come out to be even close in color to "navy" but I was running out of time majorly, so the purple they ended up at just has to work.  They came out a bit streaky, but I think adding a few more coats would have fixed that problem.

 

Shoe on the right is how they came, and shoe on the left is after two coats.

The shoes are the first version of the American Duchess Georgianas. I'm not sure they are available any more.

 

Finished product! The colors in these photos are off.  The ribbon is a dark steely grey with purple undertones. It doesn't match the shoe, but is of the same material as my dress.

 

They aren't the right year by any stretch of the imagination, but they are better than the shoes that I was going to have to wear, if in color only.  They've never been worn and are slick on the bottom, so I'm hoping that's not an issue.


I can't wait to show the whole outfit! I'm very busy the next few days, but hope to get it up soon.